As promised.
The words above act as a snapshot of what once was. Their website has since removed my wise words. Truly a pity. Some of them have been preserved, but sadly those attached to the other post are forever lost in the whorls of time and space and flashing lights that is the internet. Of note: Donovon elected to remove my posts, but not their responses, resulting in a jarring situation best described, in layman’s terms, as a “circle-jerk”, where everyone agrees with everyone else and any contesting opinions are immediately quashed.
In the immortal words of George Orwell,
Ignorance is bliss.
Now, Kasen’s reaction in particular is of interest. He feels the need to insult me but unfortunately fails — ultimately sending mixed messages. This next exchange is particularly unique:
Someone explain this to me, please.
It took me more than a moment to comprehend his words. They seem absurd and non-sequitur at first and while I have no doubt that all who are interested understand, I will clarify nonetheless. From the combination of anime smileys in his prior message (an increasingly rare example of non-ironic usage) and his comments, we can deduce that he believes himself a weeaboo and I a troll. I denied my status as a troll, to which he responds,
If I was a troll you’d be a weeaboo.
a sentence that will no doubt raise several eyebrows. My understanding is that he ‘reversed’ our perceived roles. In an (horrible, horrible) opposite land where I am him and he is me, our roles swapped, I would carry traits that he possesses now. I would be a ‘weeaboo’, he a ‘troll’.
I assumed this explanation to be correct and ventured an argument of my own. “If our roles were truly reversed,” I say, “You would be a troll, a weeaboo, and astoundingly brilliant.” By this, I imply that I am much more than just a troll. I imply that I too have knowledge of weeaboo culture (more on this later!) and have acted as a troll in the past (more on my past exploits later!), and also am astoundingly brilliant. I then say that he’s a sub-par dude all around and type something in gratuitous Japanese to prove my claims.
In an attempt to inject some humor into the admittedly dull comments section of the site, I went off on an amusing tangent. I sneaked in a stealth-insult too, a jab at Mabinogi.
For those curious as to the contents of my other comments, I will briefly summarize below:
Donovon asked why I continued to visit their site. I explained my situation and lack of stipulation to refrain from returning. I also mentioned that I found their reactions amusing. Kasen responds with, “Get a life,” to which I said something of the sort:
Schadenfreude does not preclude having a life. When the inevitable happens and everything falls apart, it simply means that at the end of it all, I’m the one that’s laughing.
Ah, how dark and edgy. At any rate, I can’t help but wonder if it was that statement that exacerbated the admittedly taut tensions between us. More likely he realized that my comment’s continued existence on his site simply funneled more readers to my own.
How I grieve for the youth of today.
So recently I had the pleasure of engaging in the wonderful art of conversation with a simpleton by the name of Kenny Tran. Now let me tell you, dear readers, I am not one to dismiss another out of hand without giving them a fair chance to share their thoughts or opinions. I am not one stirred to action or otherwise act brashly, yet there are some things that I cannot help but feel strongly about. Peruse the below conversation, if you will.
Can someone please explain what just happened? That was a rhetorical question. I’ll be the one doing the explaining. I’ll even put it in terms our pal the_azn_kid73@hotmail.com could understand. This may be a little jarring, I apologize. It will be written from Kenny’s perspective.
so first this guy msged me lol nd then he said sum stuff that i dont understand!! wat a fag so i just sed shut up a bunhc. he kept saying stuff that i didn’t get so i told him to shut up becuz smart peeple make me feel sad becauz im dumb but thats k becuz im chill. peeple like jared need me so i can be exploited (i dunt even no wut that word means)
I apologize for any scarring of brain tissue that may have occurred while you attempted to comprehend that menagerie of poorly conceived sentence fragments and grammatically challenged statements.
Now, I understand that this is only my interpretation, and as history has shown, rarely does one side hold all the facts in the palm of their hand. For all I know, Kenny could be an educated and dapper fellow, learned in the many aristocratic arts. He could secretly possess a great fondness for poetry, behooved by society to keep his secret under wraps. Note his precarious use of the word “Fag”. You may be familiar with the term. Most often it is used as an insult between 12-year-old boys incognizant of greater thought. It carries connotations of homosexuality as well as distaste.
Perhaps most interestingly, “Fag”, when not used facetiously, often implies some insecurity on the part of its user. What exactly does he have to be insecure of? These are questions to ponder should you ever interact with this pitiable adolescent. Confined to a life of mediocrity, perhaps. With his email address in your possession, there is nothing stopping you from continuing this investigation yourself.
And lastly, a slight aside:
You may have noticed my ironic emulation of teenager textual trademarks, on occasion. Generally I will fall into a limited prose when interacting with those of lesser intelligence, out of consideration. I try to bridge the gap, suggesting that the immensity of distance between the both of us that exists in reality is in fact but a hop, step, and jump. I lower myself to their level. However, once the mask has shattered, I maintain it — for irony’s sake. I cease my intentional restricting of vocabulary, offering a stark contrast to the limited and subdued communication of moments prior. This serves to distance myself from them and also aims to encourage feelings of deceit and betrayal.
I will also say that my use of the phrase “i don’t play by anyone’s rules but my own” was purely humorous and does not reflect upon myself at all.
Okay so…
I had this really awesome and hilarious and all around great post here a few hours ago but was forced to pull it down due to some fascist people who I seem to not be able to mention by name. I’m looking at you, you dictators! Ha. Well it was all in good fun, you fellas. You know I don’t hate you!
Let it be known that I am not one to keel before the authorities, but sometimes there are battles that needn’t be fought. Nothing good could possibly come of continuing that fight, so I brought it to its end as gracefully as possible.
Perhaps in a few years we’ll look back and laugh at this! I certainly hope so.
It’s back up! Those authoritarians continued to stifle my words, removing my comments. They weren’t even inflammatory! They were instead absurdly clever and humorous and quite frankly I think it hilariously hypocritical of them to continue their crusade against me! I thought we had reached a conclusion. Fortunately though, a pal of mine managed to screencap my comments. Expect a follow-up post shortly!
Seriously?
So, I lived in Calgary for a while. While there I was part of this wonderful thing called the ‘Gifted and Talented Education’ program. Altogether it was pretty much completely meaningless though I guess it did bring some like-minded individuals together. I mean, ideally, such a program would be composed of youngsters ultimately cunning, witty, and most of all intelligent, but reality is a bit more harsh and for the most part it was as much an uninspired cesspit as, well, everywhere else in the city. Perhaps its only advantage was its smaller class sizes of 12-15 students as opposed to the typical 23-26.
Why is this advantageous? Well, surely it means more student-teacher interaction or something, I don’t know, that’s not why I mention it. Rather, it’s an excellent setting for studying sociological phenomena. When dealing with such small groups of people, modeling their relationships and their thoughts and what-have-you is so much simpler. Apply some game theory and bam! instant paper. But that’s not what I mean to get at, either. It’s fascinating, is what it is. It’s a tightly-knit group and the deceits and developments and subterfuge all make for excellent entertainment. Cliques still exist of course, but they’re much more subdued. The focus is on the individual rather than the whole and you’ll have students who fit in pretty much everywhere.
There’s also not any inherent opposition to others. There’s no negative stigma toward say, those creepy japanophiles or the technophiles or the retards 4channers. I’ll write more about the latter group later as they (and their derivatives) have risen to such a prominence that something really needs to be said about them.
Well, anyway, at least that was my experience. Now, the class ‘below’ mine, they were a tad different. My observations of them were sadly limited, interactions doubly so. Their class was even smaller, though only slightly — the social groups were even more defined. Anyway, when I heard about a blog about them, I was immediately overjoyed, I mean really, it’s glorious. You may not know this about me but I drink the sorrow of people and it acts as my sole sustenance love adolescent drama more than anything else in the world. Adolescent problems are always hilarious, without exception. Especially their relationships! I pretty much salivate at the thought. Okay that’s veering off into a creepy tangent so I’m going to segue back into my main point.
Point being, they have a blog. Catch it here, dear readers. Once I skimmed through the actual contents, my excitement shifted to an emotion I’ll so eloquently refer to as ‘pity’. Not pity for them, no. Pity for myself. Oh, what a pitiable soul I am! I mean really, I had expectations for them and yet they were shattered so effortlessly! As fragile as a pane of glass. So I used my immense linguistic superiority to deliver some constructive criticism:
Truly an aristocratic response from our pals over there at GATE Happpenings 2010-2011. A round of applause for Mr. BoatLoadOfC-Men, ladies and gentleman!
Now, what followed this was a banning from their chatbox and then some being called a troll. Me, a troll! Ha ha ha, what a ridiculous thought to behold, surely. I’m also rather interested in how my above message could possibly be misconstrued as computerly. I’d love to be vain and say that the immensity of my vocabulary triggered some primordial inferiority complex and his only reaction (as is so typical of arrogant people!) is anger, but honestly, the only ‘big’ word I used there was ‘onanism’. I even threw in some dumb memes ‘kthxbai’ for irony’s sake!
No, I’m afraid that’s not it at all. His lambasting tone leads me to believe that he genuinely thinks me a troll, my criticism truthfully ringing false, seeking only to offend and not to help. He’s such a close-minded fellow he believes that any flaws I find with his own personal vernacular, his personality, or his usage of the blog itself, are in fact simply imaginings! Obviously since I said that I didn’t care much for it, I’m a troll!
“In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response.“
Well, gee. I wasn’t inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic. I wasn’t even seeking an emotional response! I just wanted him to maybe try a little harder and put some effort into his blog. When I explained myself on their handy chatbox, this was the response that awaited me.
But I'm not trolling you guys! Honest! Don't be so antagonistic and close-minded.
Okay, hold on a minute. I post a view that’s slightly different than the mainstream. I get banned. My messages are being censored! You know who else censored people’s opinions? Hitler.
Attention CIA: I suggest you put Donovon Nemeth on your watchlists. He is pretty much Hitler and the Antichrist rolled into one good ol’ fleshy blob of human!
Anyway. We then proceeded to have an insightful MSN conversation wherein he threatened to send people to beat me up. We’ve already broken through his facade and revealed his true fascist form, but this is just further evidence. The youth of today, oh lordy, what will we do?
Ultimately this is not meant to be taken in an inherently negative light; rather its purpose is to demonstrate just how horribly broken some people in this world are. Flagrant immaturity aside, this is not the proper reaction to criticism. I think I’ve nailed this point home. If someone says something you disagree with, you don’t say, “lol fag” unless you’re actively trying to make yourself out as, well, lacking some essential mental faculties the rest of us possess.
Also, just saying this:
Way to shoot yourself in the foot before you even start.
Hey, did you read Goosebumps?
Hell, I know I did, as a kid. They were wonderful. Glorious. My first introduction to horror, and at such a young age. I don’t doubt some of R.L. Stine’s mischievous creations haunted my nightmares and dreams for many a night. Well, that’s all nostalgia; to be honest, I haven’t picked up a Goosebumps book in years. Might be interesting to read through one sometime.
Why the sudden interest? I found this blog. Hilarious summaries of pretty much every Goosebumps book ever? Yes please. Anything else I could say would not do that blog justice. Seriously. Just read it. Prepare for your fond memories to be forever shattered.
Classes.
Highschool sucks, apparently. Four classes this semester. Yoga, Math, History, and Canadian History. I don’t really know what to say. Yoga? Really, administrators? The class is predominantly female. I’m talking 95% here. Well, no. 93%, but I was pretty close. I don’t know, we do stretches and lay down. It could be worse, I guess. The first day was also picture day, what fun.
Apparently you could hand your school fees into your homeroom teacher either Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. I tried to hand them in on Monday during recess and was directed to the office, where a cacophonous line of equally aggravated students awaited me. The line wasn’t going to clear by the end of our 15 minute break so I broke off and ducked into the library for a few minutes. I don’t know what to say. Our paltry selection is laughable, perhaps laudable even. We have a shelf at the back for manga and I really don’t know how at this point I could hate this school any more. I’m talking Naruto and Bleach. Oh, right, apparently the students choose what they want there, too.
Seriously, imagine for one moment, if you will, a scene of hellish suffering, overflowing and bursting at the seams with people of antagonistic disposition, all equally displeased. The last refuge, a scenic garden amidst the chaos, is filled with fellow refugees. These refugees invoke a mob rule and quickly take control, flooding it with their irredeemable tastes. If I attempt to assuage their pathetic suggestions, seeking only to replace them with my interests of perspicacious superiority, perhaps even educate them in the ways of culture, they will aggress.
I mean, okay. Maybe not so overdramatic, but I feel it captures the location rather well.
Math is hilarious. Linear equations. Solve the system! y=32x+8, y=2x+20, find where they intersect. This is grade 7 stuff.
Anyway. What was I on about? Oh right, math. We have homework every day but it isn’t marked. Our class is based entirely on tests and quizzes and the exam. In other words it’s the best class ever and is really just a free period for me to do whatever I want.
Canadian History, what can I say? It’s a grade 11 course so naturally it’s filled with a few 10s, a few 11s, and a bunch of 12s. It was either this, Mi’kmaq Studies, or African Canadian studies. I don’t know, I chose the lesser of the three evils I suppose. The teacher isn’t bad but she should learn that stretching and resizing .jpgs by 500% makes her powerpoints look really ugly. It’s all notes and assignments.
History. The teacher’s kind of cool I guess. He has a French last name so everyone assumed his favorite hockey team was the Montreal Canadiens. No, he apparently likes the Toronto Maple Leafs. This is all completely meaningless to me since I don’t like hockey. He then proceeded to use his special youtube rights (he asked the Vice Principal to unblock Youtube so he could show some documentaries) to show this collage of random hockey fights and people getting smashed in the face repeatedly. What he didn’t realize was that the Vice Principal was standing outside while this video played. Hm. I’ll be following this development carefully.
Yoga consisted of the teacher giving us a handout asking why we took Yoga. I wrote, “To get the PE credit I need to graduate.” She then explained that Yoga wasn’t easy and how it was a very difficult art or something. Cool. Then she showed us some VEGETARIAN PROPAGANDA. Then she asked us questions about the movie. I decided that I’ll pretend to be heavily anti-consumerism for this class. When asked why people didn’t buy local, I responded, “Because the masses can only support the Capitalist Machine!!” She then agreed with me. We exchanged veggie-banter for a while. Yep. ((I’m not actually vegetarian or anti-consumerist, just so you know!!))
All in all? Pretty exciting stuff I guess. Also it sucks. But mostly it’s just a generic highschool experience.
Pablum Phantasmagoria
I’ve really neglected this, haven’t I? School starts ~34 hours from now. What a distressing thought. Anyway, I wrote a little something when I was bored, feel free to read some symbolism into it.
Chapter One.
Light and dark, sun and moon, changing shifting shapes surrounded me. I knew what it was and what it meant but I was afraid to act. I couldn’t. Her beautiful face had driven me so very mad, the ever present threat of loss served as my motivator. I needed to do something, I knew that I needed to act. Standing idly by would not help either cause. And so I did it. I swore to myself I would do it.
Colors and spirals and lights! I had to press on. I ignored the vehement opposition and the stalwart crowds. I diffused the naysayers and sought only vindication. Righteous judgment and eternal suffering, internal confusion rife with obtrusions. I battled and ignored, I fell for their ploy but refused to surrender. It was my hope for salvation that pushed me further, ever further past my original goals. I needed reassurance yet my disparate pleading and yearning lead to naught but despair and disgust.
My view forever rejected, dismissed by all. My internal convictions lamented, my principles invalidated. I had neither strength nor will to continue, beaten aback by stoic, uncaring monstrosities. their wise words made me weary, they confirmed the undesirable truth. I ignored these cries and pledged to forget, but memory is not one so easily coerced. The seeds of doubt had been planted, seeds of enlightenment gestating, and so I had lost it all. the path to redemption was visible before me, a path rife with strife, ravaged, one not voyaged by me before. It was an unknown, a perplexity, I was offered a chance and a decision was forced upon me.
Would I take it?
Chapter One end.
I actually wrote this as a complete throw-away story, it was written in a mocking facetious tone to lampoon adolescent drama. I posted it on some forums and the reception was positive which surprised me, so I figured I’d repost it here. I’ll probably never continue it, or if I do it’ll be months from now when I’m feeling more motivated.
Writing prompt.
How I hate boredom. I guess I’ll deal with it by trying a short writing exercise. There’s this wonderful site called TVTropes, you see. I’m going to go there, select a random page, and spend 20 minutes writing a story around whatever it is I get. Starting… now:
Roses. The sweet smell of roses. It was the first thing I noticed. Pain was next. Aching, throbbing, piercing pain. Then loss, then guilt. My mental faculties returned to me over the next few minutes; soon I had gathered enough strength to open my eyes. The blinding sunshine drove them closed once again. I struggled to my feet, feeling around for something to use to help balance me. My hand happened upon something sharp and soon I felt the familiar warmth of blood dripping out of a wound.
I cursed, then once again opened my eyes, this time focused squarely on the ground. Seemed like I was outside. The whistling of a light morning breeze confirmed it. I glanced around, taking note of my surroundings. There was a flowerbed just a few feet away, filled with roses. I was in the middle of nowhere.
A meadow surrounded me, waving gently, almost hypnotically. The soil by the flowerbed showed signs of tampering, as if someone had dug a hole. I checked my hand over once more, noticing a light cut across the palm. I bent over, checking through the soft, verdant field, searching for what it was that made me bleed. It only took a minute. I lifted the bloody knife near to me eye, nearly dropping it when I realized. It was coated in blood — not just mine. Dry blood, long-since turned brown. I tossed it aside, back into the grass, resuming my search. Why was I unconscious next to a bloody knife?! There had to be something else.
I found it. A shovel, still caked with dirt and mud. I turned to the mound of dirt, horrified. I began to dig, ignoring the searing pain in my hand that had just sunken in. I felt bruises across my body, aches and muscle pains, as if I had been in a struggle. Dig, dig, dig. Ignore the pain. Ignore it.
*Thunk*
I hit something. Something soft, something organic. I dropped the shovel on the grass and continued the digging with my hands. I pulled away clump after clump of dirt, tearing them out from the tightly-packed soil. With each grab, I was closer to finding what had been buried. At last, it gave way, and I simply screamed. My eyes filled with tears as I saw a man’s face staring back at me, his eyes still open but completely unmoving.
Then it hit me. I realized who he was. I knew this man. I knew what I was doing here. I knew why he was buried. The tears stopped.
“Oh. It’s him.”
The man who had married my love. My angel, my dream girl. It was him. I did this to him. No one can make her happy but me.
I remembered how I had kidnapped him, dragged him kicking and struggling into my car. I beat him senseless, then stabbed once, straight through his heart. I drove to a meadow, far from anywhere else, and I dug. I dug for hours, my hands badly calloused. I covered him with dirt then collapsed from exhaustion.
My plan had succeeded. She’d be mine at last…
(END)
Well, that turned out darker than I thought it would. Kinda ran out of time at the end. The ‘random page’ was this one: Murder the Hypotenuse, which I hope I captured rather well. It’s basically a love triangle where A and B are in love with each other, but C is in love with A — C kills B to get A. I’m not really pleased with what I wrote, but it’s not bad for 20 minutes.
Religion, and my views thereof.
Might as well start off the blog with a contentious issue. I suppose I’ll scare away as many would-be readers as possible.
Let me tell you, I’ve tried to fathom religion. I’ve tried to wrap my head around it. I’ve tried and tried to understand how people can have faith in something with no evidence, and yet all of this introspection ends the same: in failure. I can conceive of situations where religion is beneficial, where it may help, but I refuse to accept that otherwise rational people believe in something just because they’re told to.
The Bible isn’t proof. If I wrote a book proclaiming myself prophet, few would accept its contents as truth. The only thing theists really have to go on — their holy texts — are easily faked. Throughout history, religion has served a purpose — it’s acted as a stopgap, a stand-in, a placeholder for things we could not understand, yet society has advanced far beyond a need for such a thing. Religion’s a holdover from an ancient time, one we refuse to let go of.
Nowadays, there are few unknowns that cannot realistically be solved with science. Things once unexplained have been answered, and every day we get smarter. There is but one great unknown we cannot fathom understanding yet, that which is death. Pessimists will tell you that cell death is inevitable, that we no longer think. Our minds forever lost, gone, our achievements and experiences too disappeared. Religion promises something else, it promises eternal paradise or bliss, perhaps even punishment. It instills within us hope for life beyond the end, and I believe this hope is dangerous.
Death is the ultimate end, no matter how you look at it. When someone or something dies, it’s passed the point of no return. As sad as it may be, there is nothing we can do. It’s natural. I think that belief of paradise or eternal life or what have you is harmful, inherently so. People who believe they’ll go to heaven are more likely to take risks, they’re more likely to act rashly. They’re less likely to value their own life above all else. All of these things are dangerous traits, traits that we can’t let spread.
Death is not something we can look forward to, nor is it something we cannot fear. By its very nature — the unknowable – we are terrified of it instinctually. Animals fear death, insects fear death. Everything alive today is afraid of death, and there’s nothing we can do to stop this or convince ourselves otherwise.
They’re afraid for a reason. There is no continuing after you die. You don’t start over and you don’t get to go to heaven. You’re forever lost, your mind stopped, your thoughts too ceased. A tragedy, but one we can do naught about.
First Post.
Perhaps the first of many. More likely, the start of a short-lived pastime.
What’s this blog about? Why does it exist? Who’s this “Jared ‘Quarr’ Boyd”, and why are you reading this?
These are questions I won’t be answering here, because frankly, I don’t know. What do you, my reader, want to see here — no, no wait. Don’t answer that; I’ll be honest, I don’t really care. This blog will be comprised of whatever I want. Rants and reviews will probably make up the meat of it.
Consider it less of a blog and more of a journal, really. It’s an experiment. I’m going to write my thoughts and you are going to read them. I’m an ordinary high-school student, nothing more. My musings may entertain or they may bore. I make no apologies.
